by Marian Tee
Don’t say it, don’t say it, stop speaking—-
“But do not think that my desire for you makes you irreplaceable—-”
Ilse’s chest squeezed at the contempt in his gaze.
“Because it does not.”
And there it was, she thought numbly.
He had hurt her, and she knew, just by looking at him, that he had only started.
“Reading about me doesn’t qualify you to psychoanalyze me—-”
She was tempted to laugh, and she probably would have if her heart hadn’t started aching so badly.
“That you could even think you do when you’re nothing but a—-” He broke off.
But it was too late.
Ilse held herself very still. “Go on,” she heard herself say. “Finish it.” She had thought he was different from the others, but in the end, his true colors had been the same as theirs.
The billionaire wanted to smash something at the soft, neutral tone of Ilse’s voice.
Fuck.
He hadn’t wanted this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wanted him, and he wanted her. It should have been that uncomplicated. So why the hell did she have to ruin it by pretending his family had anything to do with their desire to fuck each other?
“Finish it, mijnheer,” Ilse said tonelessly.
The billionaire’s jaw clenched, and at his continued silence, she released a little laugh, the sound leaving him cold.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He knew then things might be over, completely over, before anything could even begin.
“Ilse—-” This time, his voice was tight and urgent, but she cut him off with a shake of her head.
“I’m not sure if you ever stopped to wonder about this,” Ilse said calmly, “but you’re not even the first or second person to assume my choice of profession has something to do with my IQ.”
Fuck. He had an inexplicable urge to get a list of those who had insulted her and kill them, but then he also knew he would probably top that list.
“But because you knew me better than they did, you turned out to be the biggest idiot—-”
The billionaire stiffened, thinking that this time the word ‘idiot’ didn’t sound sexy at all but downright insulting. “I know I’m the one who’s in the wrong here,” he gritted out, “but I’d advise you to take care with your words—-”
“Or what?” Ilse charged. “If I don’t do as you say, you’d what? Leave me?” Her lip curled. “That only works if I was ever with you – and I wasn’t.” Her voice was strong and proud, the expression on her face disparaging, but even though she had never looked more magnificent—-
She hadn’t looked more fragile either, and it killed him, knowing that he was the reason for it.
“Enough of this,” the billionaire said heavily.
“Exactly.”
His head shot up at the utter absence of emotion in her tone. “Ilse—-”
“Because I think we’ve had enough of each other.”
FUCK.
“Ilse—-”
“If there’s one thing this life of mine has taught me,” Ilse said softly, “then it’s that it’s too precious to waste on lies and pretensions.”
She looked at the billionaire and it hurt, thinking of all that could have been. She had thought he was different...but he was not.
“My job may require me to go out dressed in costume, mijnheer,” Ilse whispered, “but I’m not the one who has been living my entire life wearing a mask—-”
She stopped speaking, the pain suddenly overwhelming her.
Was there no one she could ever depend on?
The billionaire whitened at the despair in her eyes. “Ilse.”
It was the first time her name didn’t sound right on his lips, and she wondered dully if it ever did, wondered if she had just been fooling herself all along, making her see what she wanted to see.
The billionaire’s fists clenched. Ilse, he thought bleakly, had always looked so full of life. But now—-
The urge to drive his fist into the nearest wall became almost impossible to resist.
Inhaling deeply, Ilse struggled to keep her voice steady as she said, “I think it would be best if I don’t ever hear from you again, mijnheer.”
No. Fuck, no. The billionaire shook his head sharply. “Ilse, I know I made a mistake—-”
Her proud, hurt gaze lifted to his. “We both made a mistake. You failed to see me for who I am, and so did I. We are who we are, mijnheer...and we are not for each other.”
Chapter Eight
The last days of October faded into a blur of oblivion for Ilse. Perhaps if an actual relationship had existed, moving on would have been easier, and the memories kinder. But because Jaak de Konigh was neither her boyfriend nor lover, nothing but a man she had been fatally attracted to-—
It made her feel as if she didn’t even have the right to hurt.
Mornings hurt because there were no longer calls meant to wake her up, and sometimes she could only curl into a ball on her bed, hating how she remembered the way she would shiver under the shower, knowing that the billionaire was listening to her shower.
Afternoons were just as bad, the silence in the office driving her crazy. Gloria and her co-workers went out of their way to give her space, and Ilse didn’t have the heart to tell them they were just making it worse. She wanted things back to normal, but how did one do it when everyone else was mourning an imaginary loss with her?
All these, however, Ilse managed to bear with a fake smile, but it was when evening came that her defenses completely crumbled. Evenings just left her so broken her body physically ached because of it. Nights were when it was impossible to forget the times he would make Ilse catch her breath with the heated way he looked at her, nights were when all she could hear was the billionaire’s silky voice—-
He’d borrow a line from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems and recite it to her in Spanish. He’d seduce her with lines from Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, making the words feel a lot more sexual because he was whispering them in French. He’d make her laugh by leering at her and talking dirty in Japanese, and when he was in the mood to provoke her, he’d make her gasp in horror as he quoted Jane Austen to Ilse in German.
Jaak de Konigh!
Austen!
They weren’t ever supposed to coexist in the same sentence, and oh, how she would go on, lamenting his gall, but all it did was make the billionaire laugh and promise wickedly that he’d do it forever if it would always make her cry so.
Sweet and sexy nothings, all those words were, but none of them pricked her heart the way he could when he’d speak to her in alternating Dutch and English.
I missed you the entire time I was in the meeting, babe.
Don’t ever change, schatje. You’re perfect the way you are.
I want you, Ilse, more than I’ve wanted any woman.
Ilse squeezed her eyes shut.
Oh, those words were the worst because now she knew they were nothing but lies.
AS NOVEMBER SETTLED in, its dark, cold cape of shorter days and longer nights sweeping over the city, Jaak found himself besieged with a gnawing sense of emptiness that refused to leave him even in his sleep.
Work hard, party harder.
Even with the mantra serving as the blueprint of his current lifestyle, the emptiness still didn’t leave him. Even with every minute of his day taken over by meetings and conferences while a whirlwind of social obligations and hedonistic pursuits consumed his evenings, the strange pressure around his chest never eased, and there were times when he could barely breathe at how goddamn alone he felt.
Even when there wasn’t a night he went to bed alone—-
Even with all the women chasing him—-
It just wasn’t goddamn enough.
Everything reminded him of Ilse Muir, and he had no goddamn reason why.
He tried to drown his memories in a black sea of hatred, tr
That was what he wanted – needed – to remember.
But his mind was a slick bastard, and as soon as he fell into an exhausted sleep, his dreams would force him to see the truth, to feel the pain, and most of all, those haunted goddamn dreams forced him to acknowledge his unspeakable fears—-
And that was that he would never find anyone else like Ilse Muir.
THE HUMAN HEART ALWAYS had the power to mend on its own, but it was a fact often buried in a whirlwind of depression, lost and forgotten in the deafening, overwhelming sound of denial.
But it could mend.
And it did mend for Ilse, on a day seemingly no different from the unmemorable blank dates on the calendar. She had started to walk into the living room when she saw her brother talking to himself.
He had done so ever since he was a child, and it was both a habit and game to him, a way for Jan to entertain himself whenever he was alone. Today, he had his favorite NBA jersey over his shirt, and he also had a sports band over his forehead as well as a matching wristband. She supposed he was trying to look athletic, but because of his boyishly chubby face and the fact that he had outgrown his jogging pants, he looked more like an extra for an aerobics video from the eighties.
Leaning against the doorway, she simply listened to his conversation, and soon Ilse realized that today’s roleplaying had Jan assuming the role of an NBA coach. Right now, “Coach Jan” was in the middle of giving instructions to his imaginary roster of players during a crucial timeout. “You need to do this—-” As he spoke, Jan’s fingers started moving in the air like he had a play board on his hand and he was moving the magnet markers to illustrate the play he wanted his guys to execute.
She watched her brother continue playing animatedly, and she hastily swallowed back a bubble of laughter when he stepped to the right just before his cheeks puffed up like he was blowing on a whistle.
“Foul!” It was “Referee Jan” speaking this time, with Jan seamlessly slipping into a second role.
Jan then moved back to his original position, and he was back to his previous role as coach. “Are you blind?” he bellowed. “That was a foul, alright, but it’s an offensive one! Got that? Offensive! O-P-H-E-N-C-E-A-V-E!”
Ilse’s jaw dropped.
That had to be the most complicated misspelling of offensive, and this time she couldn’t help it.
A laugh escaped Ilse, and Jan turned to her, completely indifferent to the fact that he had been caught talking to himself. “What is it?”
“I...um...have a question.” The words came out of nowhere, but as soon as they slipped past her lips, she could no longer stop her lips from twitching. “I have a question” was what her mom used to ask as a prelude for an old inside joke of the family—-
An image of how her family had used to be flashed in her mind.
Her mom grinning, her dad seated on his favorite armchair and doing his best not to laugh—-
Ah.
So many memories crashing down on her, she could almost feel herself sinking in their depths, and her throat tightened so hard she almost needed to choke and gasp for breath.
Mama.
Papa.
Jan was talking to her, and his voice slowly drew her out, rescuing her, and she clung to the sound.
As images of her parents started to fade and she started to see her brother again, she had the most terrifying urge to close her eyes and halt her return to reality.
I miss you so much, Mama, Papa.
So, so much—-
“Ilse, Ilse, can you hear me?”
But her brother needed her. And she needed him. Their parents needed Jan and her to stay here.
She opened her eyes, and she saw Jan gazing at her in puzzlement. “Ilse, what’s your question?” Jan was demanding. “Tell me because I need to go back to playing soon.”
His impatience, his sheer innocence, made Ilse shakily draw a breath. It was like feeling her parents’ embrace through it, and oh God, how it hurt, thinking – no, knowing – that wherever they were, her parents were watching over them.
Always.
“So what’s your question, Ilse?”
Clearing her throat, she gave her brother a serious look, asking with utter solemnity, “Are you crazy?”
Her brother shook his head immediately. “No.”
“But you’re talking to yourself,” she pointed out. “Only crazy people talk to themselves.”
“I know that,” Jan said patiently. “And that’s why I know I’m not crazy.”
And here it comes, Ilse thought.
“Crazy people don’t know they’re talking to themselves.” Jan gestured to himself, saying proudly, “I know I’m talking to myself, and so that means I’m not crazy.” He gave her an odd look. “Duh.”
And this time, she couldn’t stop herself.
She laughed.
She laughed until she had tears in her eyes, laughed until the truth was wonderfully clear to her.
She might not be okay now, but she would be...because she had Jan.
Jan, who was God’s greatest blessing to her—-
Jan, who was different and special—-
Life might always be a little harder because of him, but she also knew that Jan was the reason life would always be a little more beautiful.
LIGHTNING MOMENTARILY brightened the overcast skies outside the third-floor office of Glory Hall as Ilse shrugged into a nurse’s uniform that was two sizes smaller. It caused the skirt to ride a little higher than usual on her thighs while also requiring her to use a safety pin to keep the blouse from completely gaping open.
She stepped in front of the full-length mirror and grimaced at her reflection, which played between the lines of suggestive and obscene.
Oh well, Ilse thought with a mental shrug. It was only for an hour anyway.
Leaving the fitting room, she headed back to the office, where Gloria was busy encoding the details of today’s VIP tour.
Looking up from the computer, Gloria grinned at the overtly sexual image Ilse presented. If she and Ilse had been the same age, the latter would no doubt give Gloria a serious run for her money as the district’s most popular girl.
“You’re definitely going to have your hands full tonight,” the older woman predicted.
“It’s going to be fine,” Ilse dismissed. “And if something does happen—-” She patted her pocket. “I’ve got my pepper spray with me.”
Taking the printout of the last-minute booking, Gloria read, “Bachelor’s party, and they want a nurse who’d act like a naïve, country bumpkin.” The older woman wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know about this, Ilse. Something feels odd...”
Ilse rolled her eyes. “We’re a tour company that caters to men’s sexual fetishes. Every tour should feel odd.” Sliding her feet into her four-inch clogs, she fluttered her fingers in an airy wave of goodbye at her boss. “Wish me luck. I need all the tips I can get.”
Outside, her outrageous costume – combined with the way her sturdy, flashy clogs noisily clobbered the pavement – drew gazes and wolf whistles from all around her, but Ilse took everything in stride, even using the opportunity to blow kisses as she invited them to book a tour.
“Will I get to fuck you if I book a tour?” one drunken tourist hollered.
“Maybe,” she lied with a wink.
Rain suddenly started to pour hard, and curses and loud yelps of surprise lit up the night as everyone broke into a run, Ilse included.
Across the street, a waiting shed promised temporary cover but Ilse had to run past this, wanting to get to the café designated as tonight’s meeting place in time. And so she did, but by that time she was also wet and shivering, the thin fabric of her uniform turning completely transparent.
Everyone inside was staring at her when she looked up, and Ilse started when she realized that this was one of the few family-friendly cafes in the area.
“My God,” a woman seated by the bar exclaimed indignantly as she covered her young son’s eyes.
If your God is my God, Ilse thought, then you should know He doesn’t like judgmental bitches.
Turning her back on the crowd of silently gaping patrons, she hurried down the hallway where the function rooms were.
One, two, three, Ilse silently read the numbers on the doors before pausing in front of Room #6.
Ilse took a moment to review the client’s request in her mind.
Bachelor’s party, check.
Nurse’s uniform, check.
Naïve country bumpkin, check.
As Ilse took a deep breath, her chest rising, the door suddenly opened, and she came face to face with someone entirely unexpected.
“I’M JUST A BOY, STANDING in front of a girl...” He broke off when she started to laugh.
“I’m sorry, but am I really supposed to take this seriously?” She shook her head, and soft dark locks spilled down her shoulders, laid bare by the wide neckline of her floral blouse.
Behind her, the late afternoon sun showered the classroom with fading golden rays, and maybe it was his imagination, or maybe it was because he had always thought she was too beautiful and nice to be real—-
It seemed to him that all those rays were drawn to her like they knew she was the kind of girl destined to be worshipped.
“You’re doing it again,” she suddenly sighed.
“Huh?”
“Staring at me like I’m a freak.”
He quickly shook his head, appalled. “It’s not like that at all.” He tried to search his mind for the right word, but words had never been his thing, and it was his turn to sigh in frustration.
“Don’t have the right word again?” she teased.
“Yeah, yeah, go ahead, laugh at me. I know I’m the typical brainless jock in your eyes—-”
“Of course not,” she protested with exaggerated dismay.
He made a face.
She grinned. “Sorry, sorry, that’s the last time I’m teasing you. I promise.” She stood up and reached for her bag. “It’s getting late though. Maybe we can continue with...” She paused self-consciously. “Anyway, let’s just talk tomorrow...if you still want to.”
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